Let me start by saying, I’m not too worried about a huge Ebola outbreak in the United States (despite major media outlets trying to convince me to be). But I do think the cultural anxiety surrounding Ebola right now is a good opportunity to have an important talk.

Many in the scientific community working in disease control have been telling us that antibiotic-resistant strains of bacteria are making the question of an eventual catastrophic outbreak a case of when rather than if. 

I don’t say this to worry or upset anyone. I bring this up to simply ask the Christian community, what is our response going to be when it does happen?

Remembering Y2K

You see, it wasn’t too long ago that many people were scared to death of Y2K. Remember this nonsense? The computer time codes which ran on the last two digits of the year (89 for the year 1989) were going to roll over in 2000 to double zeros—and immediately planes would fall out of the sky and roving bands of marauders would rape and pillage their way across the wasteland that used to be America.

Many evangelical Christians, ever vigilant to roll the next potential tragedy into their eschatology, were on the front lines yelling, “The sky is falling! The sky is falling!”

Of course, it was a complete non event. We watched the New Year roll over in Kiribati and . . . nothing. Zilch. Bupkis. I still kind of wonder how Christianity didn’t walk away from that with a bigger black eye.

What’s troubling in retrospect is how many Christians embraced a violent, survivalist strategy. They weren’t just stocking up on food and water; they were buying guns and ammo. They were teaching their kids how to shoot the plunderers who were going to come and steal their provisions.

During a time when a number of Christians seriously thought the end was coming, they were not preparing to be a city on a hill. They were planning to be a heavily guarded citadel/militia.

Would our response to a major pandemic be the same?

Christians and the Black Plague

Between Iceland and India, the bubonic plague wiped out one-third of the population in three short years (1348–50). While I’d love to focus on the Franciscans, Dominicans, and Augustinian hermits who would stay behind to nurse the sick and dying, much of the Christian reaction was less that stellar. I cannot begin to imagine how horrifying and scary living through the Black Death was, but in some ways the Christian response was worse than the responses of average European citizens.

Like an ancient collection of Jerry Falwells, the Brotherhood of the Flagellants appeared on the scene in the latter part of 1348. It was their belief that God was punishing Europe, and they took it upon themselves to atone for the sins of the multitude. They’d walk through the streets whipping themselves with sticks and spiked whips while singing hymns to God and praying for forgiveness. People would gather to watch the bloody demonstrations that lasted nearly a year before the Pope Clement VI denounced them.

Things haven’t changed very much in the last 650+ years. If a natural tragedy strikes, many high-profile Christians don’t rally us to service and display the love and glory of God, they attribute it to God’s anger at whatever social issue is hot at the time. For instance, Pat Robertson blamed Hurricane Katrina on American abortion policies while John Hagee blamed the homosexuals.

Europe turns against the Jews

Responding to catastrophe by looking for a scapegoat is nothing new.

Kabbalah—a mystical form of Judaism—was becoming influential around the time the Black Plague was hitting Europe. Because Jewish communities were pretty isolated from others already, they were basically quarantined when the plague started. Naturally, many Christians fearing the magical influence of Kabbalah and the relative health of their Jewish neighbors, assumed the Jews were poisoning their wells with black magic. It wasn’t long before open and hostile anti-Semitism erupted where there had been reasonable peace.

Soon Jews were being tortured into confessing their part in in the plague. Attacks in the street were widespread and Jews were being burned at the stake and entire villages were being burned to the ground.

Would we respond to a outbreak by looking for people to blame for God’s judgement?

The natural conclusion to bad eschatology

It’s my conviction that Christians aren’t a people suffering for lack of a working theodicy; we’re suffering for lack of a “service at all costs” perspective. The need to answer calamity’s “why” questions obscures the real question, “What should be our response to tragedy?”

The response to Y2K revealed everything unhealthy in evangelical eschatology. Because so many view the end times as an inevitable and tragic battle royale where God finally gives the wicked the throttling they have coming to them, our main job is to escape or endure tribulation.

End-times fever doesn’t make us hope-filled people offering the world a message of reconciliation. We’ve become nervous and reactionary, looking forward to God’s judgments being meted out, while hoping to be raptured away before the real suffering begins.

I had a discussion about a potential American Ebola outbreak, and the person I was talking to was seriously considering how long they could possibly hole up and hide at home. And instantly I was thinking about the gun-packing Y2K survivalist or 1950’s bomb shelter builders.

Obviously, we need to be thoughtful and careful how we act in a disaster. No one’s advocating carelessness. But the moment we get into an “better them than us” mentality, our faith has become void.

If there was a deadly outbreak in the United States, would we Christians stand up—at the potential cost of our own lives—to bring comfort to the afflicted? Or would we hide? I’m worried that I already know the answer to that. Some estimate that Ebola’s worldwide death toll could be as high as 12,000. Honestly, what has been the been the American response? How has the American church responded? The angst stateside towards Ebola deaths on the African continent has been marginal at best.

Yet, as I write this on October 16, 2014, one person has died stateside from Ebola and now people are losing their minds. This tells me that the “better them than us” view is already alive and well.

The scapegoating and politics need to end

It’s strange to see how people’s feelings of Ebola are divided by political lines. Listening to life-or-death related concerns reduced to finger pointing about Obamacare and immigration is maddening. You would think that a potential threat would unite us, but maybe we’re beyond that.

And I swear, if I hear one celebrity Christian trying to turn a group or ideology into the reason God’s angry enough to send us Ebola, I’m going to lose it. No one cares when it’s killing our African brothers and sisters, but once it lands stateside, we need to figure out why God’s mad at us. We obviously don’t deserve the suffering endured by the rest of the world—we’re God’s chosen people.

Tragedy isn’t an opportunity to drum up hatred or animosity toward an idea or group. It’s an occasion to rise up and show our abiding faith that God is a stronghold for the oppressed (Psalm 9:9). How we rise to challenging times with faith and comfort for the afflicted, even when it comes at potential cost to us, is what points to our theology of divine service and our faith in a divine Servant.

This Ebola issue will probably pass without turning into an epidemic. But if it doesn’t, we need to ask what we’re going to do at such a time as this. There have been times when Christians have put themselves in great danger to take care of the afflicted. Wonderful Christians have thrown themselves into stemming a spread of Cholera in places like Cambodia, or giving themselves over to serve lepers in Calcutta. But I am very curious how we would respond if a dire epidemic were to erupt in “God’s country.”

My sincere prayer is that we wouldn’t think of ourselves first, that we don’t focus on placating an angry god, or find a scapegoat. I pray that we’d rise up as models of the savior we serve.

The post Love in the Time of Ebola appeared first on Jayson D. Bradley.

NOTE: Since this post was published yesterday, Bobby Grow has written “An Open Apology to Rachel Held Evans” and removed the original post referenced in this work. 

I read Rachel Held Evans piece on Abraham, “I would fail Abraham’s test (and I bet you would too)” and, not only was I not scandalized, I enjoyed it. I’ve had many of the same thoughts.

And then I read this piece entitled, “Farewell Rachel Held Evans???” by blogger Bobby Grow. Obviously, the title hearkens back to the Twitter dismissal of Rob Bell by popular pastor John Piper. And my first thought was, “here we go, another attempt to purify a theological framework by threatening exclusion.”

It used to be that heretics were identified and called out by counsels after much thought and deliberation (and they still got it wrong); now it’s done by anyone with access to a free social-media platform and a following.

I glossed over the post and didn’t think that much about it—until I saw that Rachel had responded. It was a good and thoughtful response which included this gem:

“You can’t ‘farewell’ me from the Table because it’s not your Table. It’s not your denomination’s Table. It’s not Calvin’s Table. It’s not my Table. It’s Christ’s Table, and all who are hungry are welcome.”

Grow responded (backpedaled) pretty quickly. Once Rachel showed up and stuck up for herself, Grow wanted to distance himself from some of the more inflammatory tone of his post. I read it and smiled because, I’ve been there. I’ve said harsh things about people online and then was found myself more than a little ashamed when confronted by them.

Establishing your brand

The big problem is that you can cut through the online noise so much more quickly by aggressively going after specific online personalities. A lot of beginning bloggers start by writing some nice personal story pieces that are read by tens of their closest friends and family. But one day they read something about a Mark Driscoll or a Brian McClaren and then write their own, often scathing, post and . . . voilà—all of the sudden, they have 1,000+ views. Wow!

Then they go back to writing in their typical style and the visits start trailing off. It’s not too hard to see that the shortcut to virility is found in pointed, unnuanced, aggressive communication.

If you find some popularity in writing this kind of post, it’s hard not to do it again. Chasing the dragon of high pageviews can be a terrible sort of drug. But once you establish this as your brand, then what? Being that person to court attention can be like striking up the internet’s worst Faustian deal—because it’s hard to stop when posts like this become the brand that keeps people coming back for more.

On top of that, it gets easy to confuse pageviews with deific license.

Seriously, a “Farewell Rachel Held Evans” post is gold. It has everything you need to ensure a hugely popular evangelical post:

• it calls out a well-known personality
• it instantly reminds us of another huge evangelical dust up
• it establishes the author’s credibility as one who can dismiss heretics
• it appeals to an evangelical base that’s tired of “liberalism”
• it courts controversy

But it’s hard to maintain that strong, aggressive stance when the subject of the post shows up. Then you’re faced with a choice: do I maintain my post’s posture and go to blows or do I apologize and adopt a more congenial posture?

Making the first choice can make you look like a jerk (and possibly embarrass you if they’re more articulate, thoughtful, and prepared), but the second choice will quickly reveal what’s behind the wizard’s curtain. You’re not an evangelical lion protecting biblical theology: at best, you’re someone who forgets that the person you’re writing about is probably going to read your post, or at worst, you’re just someone trolling for more online attention.

I don’t say this to shame Bobby Grow, mind you. I’ve seen this a million times—and been guilty of it myself.

Don’t take the shortcut

I would encourage anyone starting out to take the long road of honing your craft and writing thought-provoking content. There are ways you can respond to things you read online that aren’t just jockeying for pageviews and controversy.

When Bobby Grow reads this, I won’t have to apologize for the tone. And if he says, “dude, you’re a complete idiot,” we won’t have to fight about it because the point isn’t Bobby Grow is a huge heretic that evangelicalism needs to toss out on his unbiblical ass. The point’s simply this, “what good is it if you gain all the pageviews and lose your own soul?”

I can count on one hand the number of people I know who keep a blog for their own edification. Most of us write because we believe we have something of value to say and we want to be heard. Refuse to take the shortcut of infamy. You’re going to be much happier with your writing when you’re not having to manufacture outrage to keep your readership.

The post Manufacturing Outrage in the Christian Blogosphere appeared first on Jayson D. Bradley.

No one’s talents or gifts should be an expressway into ministry.

God has gifted each of us with specific talents and gifts from birth. But the fact that someone is musically talented, able to teach, or particularly inspirational is not a license for ministry.

With a modicum of biblical knowledge, an ability to speak Christianese, and some Christian living book titles under their belt, it’s easy for someone to make their gifts seem like a blessing to any church or religious organization. Out of need or desperation, churches will often fast track people into ministry before their ready—damaging both the church and the individual.

I don’t think many people infiltrate our churches with the intention of creating havoc. I think part of the problem is that we’ve created a culture that elevates ministry over faithfulness as a sign of Christian fidelity.

Instead of following Paul’s admonition to the Thessalonians to “make it your ambition to lead a quiet life and attend to your own business and work with your hands, just as we commanded you, so that you will behave properly toward outsiders and not be in any need” (1 Thess. 4:11–12), we push people to consider ministry the apex of the Christian life.

So, when people begin walking with Jesus, they’re not seeing communion with Christ as an end in itself, they’re seeing Christian spirituality as a gateway to Christian ministry with ministry being the ultimate goal.

The problem with gifts

When we elevate people in the church based on our need and their gifts, we put everyone in a precarious position.

Most people with musical gifts or any worship leading experience can tell you stories about walking into a church and having ministry literally thrown into their lap. But there’s a huge trap in promoting people based on their abilities.

If someone has amazing teaching/speaking skills or impeccable musical ability and you prematurely elevate them into ministry, there’s a great chance that they’ll be successful. You read that right—they’ll be successful. This isn’t necessarily a positive thing. Eventually their position is going to require a spirituality from them that they’re not going to be able to pull from their stockpile of gifts or fake their way through. That’s when things are going to start getting really messy.

I can think of so many public Christian figures and pastors operating out of their gifts and not their connection to the divine. Because they’ve been successful using their gifts, they presume that they’re operating out of an abundance of spirituality when, in truth, that are operating at a deficit. To draw on a Top Gunism, their abilities are writing checks their spirit can’t cash. This bankruptcy will catch up with them. Sadly, I speak from experience.

The problem isn’t, as we often presume, because they’re bad or have evil intent. The problem often exists because put people in positions of authority before they’re spiritually prepared for them.

Give me spirit-filled people

A problem shows up in Acts 6 when Hellenistic  Jewish widows were being overlooked in the daily distribution of food (think about that a minute . . . daily food distribution? Wow!). Because of this need, some people had to be chosen to ensure that no one was being overlooked. The disciples pulled the church together and made this decree:

“Therefore, brethren, select from among you seven men of good reputation, full of the Spirit and of wisdom, whom we may put in charge of this task.”—Acts 6:3

What jumps out at me here is that the disciples had a pressing need, and still made spirituality a criteria in ensuring it got done correctly. I mean, come on—we’re talking about glorified waiters. Any organized person could have guaranteed that all the widows were getting their needs met.

I completely understand that there’s a danger in hyper-spiritualizing things like this. I mean, how do you create a rule for who is filled with the Spirit and who is not? That has great potential to become some new rule of law that become easy to manipulate. . . and then we’re back at square one.

On the other hand, to remove the spiritual component from the equation sets everyone up for trouble.

Tips for discerning someone’s fitness for ministry

First off, not every role in the church is equal. The prerequisites for a greeter are probably different from someone teaching Sunday school. The expectations placed on someone playing bass should be different than the person leading people into worship. It’s probably wise for your church to establish a ministry/maturity rubric. The intention isn’t to create an ironclad document with no flexibility, but tho have an important discussion about spiritual issues and how they relate to activities in your body.

*Can I just say that children’s ministry and nursery do not strike me as areas where less spirituality is required. I understand that this is an area with a lot of need and it’s difficult to get people involved, but we can’t let our critical need lead us into a precarious position. Our children represent the church at its most physically and spiritually vulnerable and the damage done by pushing people into that area has been catastrophic.

Beyond that, here are some tips for ensuring someone’s ready to begin ministering in your church:

Do they seem humble?

I’m not asking if they can mimic humility. I wrote a post entitled 4 Stupid Substitutes for Humility where I discussed some silly humility substitutes. Don’t be taken in by them.

No. What I am asking is: Do they generally care about the welfare and issues of others? Can they let a self-promotional opportunity pass? Do they need to be center stage and talking about themselves all the time?

Do they serve behind the scenes?

Will this individual do things that don’t display their gifts? Do they hang our after gatherings and help clean up? Do they have a reputation for joyfully doing what needs to be done?

There’s no “spiritual gift” for cleaning toilets, but toilets need to be cleaned. You learn a lot about people by what they’re willing to do.

Are they happy to volunteer?

I had a pastor say to me once that he likes paid staff more than volunteer staff because paid staff will respond to expectations—volunteers do the bare minimum. That just struck me as wrong.

If someone won’t volunteer their gifts or will only perform when you dangle a reward or title in front of them, they’re not ready for ministry . . . or staff.

Are they jockeying for leadership?

We need to be very careful not to promote people who are dead set on seeing themselves promoted. Generally, spiritual people are operating out of their gifts whether or not they’re in a recognized position. They’ll often shy away from someone trying to elevate them.

That said, just because someone turns you down for a position, doesn’t mean their spiritual. Maybe they’re just smart. It’s wise to discern the reason someone doesn’t want to be in ministry.

One sure sign they’re not ready for ministry is how important a title is to them. If they’re super excited about having “pastor” or “leader” attached to work they’re already doing (or want to do), it’s a red flag. It’s probably good to figure out why they’re attaching so much significance to it.

I remember how excited I was when I started ministry in my early twenties. If I just met you, you’d know within 5 minutes that I was a “youth pastor”—a sure sign that I was ill prepared for the position.

Are there any spiritual indicators?

This one’s difficult, and I’m nervous to give any examples. It’s relatively easy to display a spirituality that isn’t entirely real or to assume a lack of spirituality in someone based on our own personal criteria.

You do want to look past shallow measurements and find the fruit of someone plugged into the vine (John 15:5). Do they seem to draw quiet confidence from a deep reservoir? Are they Loving? Kind? Patient? Joyful?

Part of the responsibility for spiritual leadership is to find people with gifts and equip them to grow into people who can wield them effectively. We’re not just here to plug people into positions; we’re here to take people and prepare them to serve in a way that edifies everyone involved. We do ourselves and them a great disservice when we promote them prematurely.

The post Your Gifts Aren’t a Mandate for Ministry appeared first on Jayson D. Bradley.

I didn’t become a Christian out of my fear of hell—but in spite of it. When I believed at 21, it was after being overcome by Christ’s grace and goodness despite the fact that I found the concept of eternal torment abhorrent. I’d been saved into a very fundamentalist church, and I figured I’d eventually come to embrace the idea of hell. I never did.

Over the last 20+ years, the traditional view of hell has sat in the back of my mind demanding my attention. I’d take it out, examine and wrestle with it, try and engage other people with the issue, and eventually put it away out of frustration.

I’ve found the issue to be one of the most divisive topics in the church. Questioning it has created more relational headaches than nearly any doctrinal position I’ve ever explored.

I process all sorts of questionable and silly things on Twitter, but it’s my questioning of hell that regularly costs me the most followers and encourages the angriest responses, subtweets, and emails—and not just from strangers.

For many, the Gospel’s good news is bound to the idea that we’re being rescued from the flames of damnation. It’s become a sacrosanct and untouchable doctrine that even questioning gets you shoved to the outskirts of evangelicalism (Rob Bell anyone?).

Jesus is not afraid of our questions

It’s time to come out of the evangelical closet on this issue. Like everything else, when it comes to wrestling with this doctrine, I throw myself on the grace of God. I believe he validates my concerns, even when others don’t.

I refuse the label “liberal” because of my questions . . . in fact, I’m tired of carrying other’s labels of all together. Jesus is not afraid of my questions, and neither am I.

What we’re advocating with the idea of eternal conscious torment (ECT) is a hopeless Auschwitz-without-end. More than any other doctrine, I think we need to wrestle publicly with this one. The implications are huge, and what if we’re wrong?

A little clarification

What I am talking about here is the issue of eternal conscious torment. I’m not saying that God isn’t angry at sin or that everyone gets into heaven. I am in no way suggesting that there’s no penalty or consequence for our behavior. For some reason, these arguments get used to discount and dismiss this discussion.

I think questioning hell deserves more than a simple dismissal: “Well, God’s God and you’re not,” “Who are you to question God,” or “You’re just not willing to accept what the Bible clearly says.” Most conversations I’ve had regarding this issue can be summed up as, “Don’t question it. Just accept it.”

For the record, I tend toward conditionalism/annihilationism. This means that God alone is an eternal being and immortality is bestowed upon us as a gift. The soul that rejects Christ dies.

My philosophical struggle with ECT

When it comes to whether unbelievers are going to exist in a state of never-ending suffering, these are some of the philosophical problems I have. I intend to address scriptural issues in a future post, but not this one.

Don’t leave me a comment about ignoring the biblical narrative. That isn’t this post. This post is about the issues that I can’t shake when I consider tthe traditional view of hell. I encourage you to think about them as well.

So much of our interpretation is culturally conditioned, and I think we often fall back on traditional readings for many of these passages. And reason is not the antithesis of scriptural fidelity.

1. God is a good father

“Which of you fathers, if your son asks for a fish, will give him a snake instead? Or if he asks for an egg, will give him a scorpion? If you then, though you are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father in heaven give the Holy Spirit to those who ask him!”—Luke 11:11–13

God prides himself as on being the example of a good parent. I have two children, and I could never imagine inflicting long-term suffering on them no matter how terrible they were—and I’m a marginal dad at best.

If I, who am evil, cannot imagine holding any child’s hand against a hot stove for a moment. How can I imagine that God would be willing to do it forever?

What about the childhood accountability angle?

While I am on the subject of parenthood, one way we have attempted to make the hell idea more palatable is by assigning children some magical age of accountability (an idea based on scant biblical evidence). This way young children don’t go directly to hell and God doesn’t look like a complete monster.

When you factor in the idea that the road to eternal life is narrow and the path to destruction broad (for argument’s sake, let’s say that 95 percent of the world’s population ends up in hell), how can we be so strongly against abortion? Of the 55 million children aborted since 1973, 100 percent have gone straight to heaven and skipped out on the likely potential of eternal wrath. That’s more than 52 million souls that will not be tortured without end. (Bear in mind that I haven’t factored in the Calvinist view of election as it applies to the unborn. I’m not even sure how that works. Anyone?)

Obviously, I’m not really an advocate for abortion. But if I really believe that hell was real and the likelihood of people going there is high, and I also believed that children were spared by not being old enough to be held accountable, it would have a huge effect on how I viewed child mortality. The loss of temporal life for the promise of eternal reward—that sounds like a pretty good deal.

Foreign mission companies like Compassion International could pull out of impoverished countries and do more eternal good for these kids than they do by keeping them alive and putting them at risk of following foreign gods. We’re comparing momentary and infinite suffering here. If we’re serious, it seems like a no brainer.

I’m being facetious, but my point stands. We take care of the needy and protect life because God, who I believe is a good father, says that life matters. I believe that the Bible teaches that we’re personally responsible when people suffer and we have the ability to make it stop. I refuse to believe that this is all some divine “do as I say, and not as I do.”

2. ECT is an “eye for an eye” on steriods

“You have heard that it was said, ‘Eye for eye, and tooth for tooth.’But I tell you, do not resist an evil person. If anyone slaps you on the right cheek, turn to them the other cheek also. And if anyone wants to sue you and take your shirt, hand over your coat as well. If anyone forces you to go one mile, go with them two miles. Give to the one who asks you, and do not turn away from the one who wants to borrow from you.”—Matthew 5:38–48

Jesus reframed our understanding of justice. No longer should we look at evil done and desire it be paid back exactly as it was meted out. We should trust that God will ensure that justice is done. Be honest with yourself—is immortal agony justice?

ECT doubles down on an “eye for an eye” and turns it into infinite punishment for finite sin. . . and you thought karma was a bitch.

3. Does God hold eternal grudges?

“When they came to the place called The Skull, there they crucified Him and the criminals, one on the right and the other on the left. But Jesus was saying, ‘Father, forgive them; for they do not know what they are doing.’”—Luke 23:34

Christ not only commanded me to forgive my enemies, he modeled it on the cross. ECT says he forgave them knowing that eventually he intended to torture them forever. This hardly sounds like the same God who tells me, “If you love those who love you, what reward will you get? Are not even the tax collectors doing that?” (Matt. 5:46)

I don’t have a single enemy that I wish physical pain on, but I’m still instructed to practice the act of forgiveness. This means I have to forgive people that I just don’t really like—even if I don’t wish them any ill. I struggle reconciling that with a being whose plan is agony forever and ever, not just for a Hitler or a Stalin, but for your faithful and altruistic woman raised in a Buddhist culture.

4. God never forgets the suffering

“He is before all things, and by Him all things hold together.”—Colossians 1:17

If there is a place of eternal suffering, it is being stoked at the will and order of God. Some believe that hell is full of demons torturing humans, but it’s hell for the devil and his angels, too. If they’re doing the torturing, they’re simply on vacation.

No. If anyone suffers forever, it is only at God’s hand. It is God who turns Hades’ microwave on high and set the timer to ‘always.’ But he doesn’t forget. After one million years, he’s still powering hell’s engine.

It was stormy last night, and it bothered me that I was warm and dry while I knew that there were homeless people out there suffering in the weather. I was thankful for my shelter but the joy was tempered knowing that there were others sitting in the wind and rain. I don’t know them. I don’t know if they’re good or bad people, but the knowledge of their suffering mattered to me.

I can’t imagine enjoying heaven knowing there are people in hell . . . and I don’t love those people as much as God does. I’m left to wonder, knowing that all things are created for God’s pleasure (Rev. 4:11), would he actually enjoy the perpetual torment of mankind . . . even though he says doesn’t even delight in the death of the wicked (Ez. 33:11)? Is there really no end to God’s anger despite his promise to the contrary (Is. 57:16—18)?

5. There is no benefit to ECT

“Does God pervert justice? Does the Almighty pervert what is right?”—Job 8:3

One of the most beautiful things about the cross is how my God uses it to redeem the world to himself. It’s the climax of human history and through this work God woos and calls us to him.

I believe that sin is terrible and destructive and there’s a divine rage that burns within the bosom of YHWH towards it. But is that rage leading him towards the punitive response of eternally scourging people? I say punitive because there’s nothing to be gained by it. It isn’t redemptive. It isn’t leading to repentance. It’s simply pain for pain’s sake, and I can’t find any reason in it—no justice.

I can’t resolve the idea that this God, who so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son, intends to torture people forever for simply not believing. If you were to introduce me to a deity like that from any fantasy novel I’d say that god was diabolic.

These are some of the issues surrounding hell that haunt me. I believe they resonate with many of you, but I know that they annoy a number of you, too. I’m curious to read your thoughts. I intend to follow this up with a more Scripture-heavy discussion at another time.

But before you simply start firing away at me, please know that I’m being as honest as possible. And in the words of Martin Luther before the Imperial Diet of Worms:

“Unless I am convicted by scripture and plain reason—I do not accept the authority of the popes and councils, for they have contradicted each other—my conscience is captive to the Word of God. I cannot and I will not recant anything for to go against conscience is neither right nor safe. God help me. Amen.”

The post 5 Philosophical Arguments against an Eternal Hell appeared first on Jayson D. Bradley.

I was a seventeen-year-old kid with no religious affiliation who just wanted to see Martin Scorsese’s The Last Temptation of Christ. I didn’t realize I’d have to walk through a gauntlet of Christians handing out pamphlets and trying to turn me away. The first woman who approached me (I would guess she was in her thirties) handed me a gospel tract and told me I was doing myself no favors by going to see this movie.

The movie had been out for a while, so I asked her, “Have you seen it?”
“No, and you shouldn’t either,” she replied.
“Oh?” I was pretty skeptical at this point. “What’s so terrible about it?”
“Well, it’s all right there,” she said, pointing to the paper in my hand.
“Who told you it’s bad?” I asked, and she replied: “Well, everyone knows. But My pastor has talked a lot about it.”

I wandered around the crowd of protesters and picketers and couldn’t find one person who had actually seen the movie. After I went home, I remember thinking, “Who spends their time protesting something based on second-hand presumptions?”

Vicarious convictions

I can understand how one might skip entertainment on the recommendation of someone they trust. But as someone skeptical of Christianity, I was surprised that people would go out of their way to protest and communicate their displeasure based on someone else’s strongly held beliefs.

But as a teen in the ’80s, I’d experienced that a lot. Whether it was music or role-playing games, Christians were often speaking into my life based on the “expertise” of others. It can be pretty frustrating to defend something you love against people who are passionate it’s wrong, but only have a marginal, hand-me-down understanding of it.

Less than five months later, I was the guy blathering on what I’d learned from others.

I became a Christian at 21 and within a year or two was managing a Christian bookstore—right across the mall’s hallway from a New Age bookstore. This was the early 90s, and the New Age movement was evangelical Christianity’s public enemy number one, and I’d been fed a steady diet of information pertaining to this new-age tool of Satan to mislead the masses.

Terry, who owned the store, was an older, slender man who pulled his long, grey hair back into a ponytail. When it was slow, we’d sit in between our stores and chat. Terry was so incredibly patient while I, in my ignorant enthusiasm, said presumptuous unkind things. I’d read a lot of Christian books about the New Age movement, so I considered myself a bit of an expert. I wasn’t.

He knew way more about the Bible than I knew about any of the stuff in his store. He could have humiliated me, and he never did. As we got to know each other, we became friends. We would share books with each other and developed a appreciation for each other’s opinions.

The power of understanding

Here’s the thing, I gained so much more from reading Terry’s literature than he gained from reading mine. Being exposed to what was important to him taught me a lot about who he was. It added a huge missing element to the stuff I’d been taught about the New Age. These were often beautiful, sincere people who were trying to figure out life, too. Being exposed to things that were important to him gave me the ability to see areas where we shared common ground and life experiences.

One of the habits in Stephen Covey’s Seven Habits of Highly Effective People is to seek first to understand, and then to be understood. This was the relationship where I truly experienced this habit’s value. As I really sought to understand him, I shed the reactive, accusatory posture I had been conditioned to adopt.

This was the relationship where I first realized that I could build a friendship that didn’t have to have an ulterior evangelistic motive. I wasn’t befriending him for the purpose of sharing the gospel; I became his friend because he was a very sweet man. Learning to get to know someone empathetically isn’t a tool for evangelism, it’s something well-adjusted humans do. Building that kind of relationship does give you more influence, but you don’t do it for that purpose. You do it because people deserve to be appreciated and understood where they’re at.

Because he was my friend, I talked to him about Jesus a lot—and he listened, but I paid attention while he shared his thoughts with me, too.

Maybe we could be making more of an effort

In the last 20+ years, not much has changed. I’m still exposed to regular arguments, judgments, and statements made by people with only a cursory understanding of another person’s beliefs, theology, values, or ideas. Everything they know about the topic at hand has come from a hastily read book, thesis, or blog post written by someone else who may or may not have done the work to get inside the subject.

We approach each other in stereotypes and generalities because it’s just easier than investing the time in understanding contrary ideologies, thoughts, people, and literature.

I know people who would say, “I need to guard my thoughts, so I can’t go around investing time in reading things that I just don’t believe.” To this I would say that you’re actually doing yourself more damage with this mindset.

If you only read what you agree with, you never learn to read critically. You’re not really practicing discernment by ignoring contradictory ideas; you’re intentionally stunting your understanding.

Of course, you don’t have time to fully understand every opposing theology or philosophy, so what now? I want to let you in on a little secret . . . and it just might change your life.

Are you ready?

Here it comes . . .

You don’t have to have an opinion about everything. You don’t have to pretend like you’re an expert in every field. There’s no real loss of social standing or humiliation in not knowing what you don’t know. And if all you know about a subject has come from someone writing or speaking in opposition, you don’t really know it.

You’re not defiled by contrary information, and it just might be a benefit. So the next time you are tempted to weigh in as an expert based on second-hand information, think twice. You may be doing yourself, and others, a disservice.

Oh, and The Last Temptation of Christ? Super boring, with a few thought provoking moments. But the Peter Gabriel’s soundtrack Passion is still my number one choice for music while I am studying, praying, or meditating.

The post Learning Not to Puppet the Convictions of Others appeared first on Jayson D. Bradley.

I promised to come back and focus on the scriptural reasons why I reject eternal conscious torment (ETC), which is the idea that those who die without Christ will suffer forever in a Hieronymus Bosch painting. After this post, I’ll probably write one more to talk through some arguments for ETC and responses I’ve received from people who endorse this view.

So here, in a nutshell, is why I believe the Bible teaches conditionalism/annihilationism.

What is conditionalism?

When I was growing up, one presuppositions that bolstered a belief in eternal torment was the idea that God created us immortal. Because we were immortal—and God couldn’t do a thing about it—we simply had to exist forever. And, since sitting in a cosmic waiting room with expired copies of Highlights and People Magazine is too good for bad people, they needed to suffer torture forever.

Scripturally speaking, the significance of Adam and Eve’s lost access to the Tree of Life is the loss our collective immortality. As Paul tells Timothy, “He who is the blessed and only Sovereign, the King of kings and Lord of lords, who alone possesses immortality and dwells in unapproachable light, whom no man has seen or can see. To Him be honor and eternal dominion! Amen.” (1 Tim. 6:15–16)

Conditionalists believe that eternal life rests entirely upon right relationship with God. Paul seemed to agree when he tells the Romans, “God ‘will repay each person according to what they have done.’ To those who by persistence in doing good seek glory, honor and immortality, he will give eternal life. But for those who are self-seeking and who reject the truth and follow evil, there will be wrath and anger.” (Rom. 2:6–7)

This seems to suggest that eternal life is a gift given to those who align themselves to the Lord and not mankind’s natural state.

(Also see: John 3:15—16, John 10:28, John 17:2, 2 Tim. 2:10 , Gal. 6:8, 1 John 5:11, and 1 Cor. 15:53-54)

What is annihilationism?

While conditionalism considers the nature of immortality, annihilationalism considers the fate of those who find themselves outside of a redeemed relationship with God through the cross. The two beliefs support each other and are usually seen together.

One of the most beautiful images in Revelation is seeing the tree of life standing once again in humanity’s midst (Rev. 22:1–2). Having God again plant life at the center of humankind tells me that the benefit of being found “in Christ” is eternal life. The tree does represent life after all and its reintroduction suggests to me that this life is given to us as a gift.

I think Scripture is clear that, apart from Christ, we cease to exist. I know that people get caught up on words like “eternal punishment,” but this doesn’t need to be interpreted as torment without end. In fact, annihilation is exactly that—eternal punishment. Nothing’s more eternal than ceasing to exist. I mean, we don’t think of the eternal redemption of Hebrews 5:9 or 9:12 as an on going process of redemption, but rather a redemption that goes on forever.

What does the Old Testament say about the wicked’s fate?

You can’t really ignore 75% of the Bible when you talk about what happens to people after death. But whenever I get into this conversation with a traditionalist, they inevitably tell me that the writers of the Old Testament were not interested in what happens to people after they die. My response is always a resounding, “Poppycock!”

Throughout the Old Testament, God is often threatening the wicked with complete extermination.

“Therefore, as tongues of fire lick up straw and as dry grass sinks down in the flames, so their roots will decay and their flowers blow away like dust; for they have rejected the law of the Lord Almighty and spurned the word of the Holy One of Israel.”—Isaiah 5:24

Notice the imagery of fire that gets transferred over to the New Testament? These tongues of fire may burn forever, but what’s thrown in them is burned up (see also Malachi 4.1–3). In fact, God warns that those trapped within his wrath will have their names blotted out under heaven (Deut. 29:20).

The Psalms frequently speak of the wicked’s final judgment with verses like:

• They’ll be cut off of remembrance (Psalm 34:16)
• They’ll be uprooted and remembered no more (Psalm 9:6)
• The righteous will abide forever (Psalm 37:27), but the wicked will be no more (Psalm 27:20)
• They’ll be like a snail that dissolves into goo, or a stillborn child that never sees the sun (Psalm 58:8)
• All sinners will be destroyed; there will be no future for the wicked (Psalm 37:38)

These are not the only Old Testament references to a final end for the enemies of God. You can find this imagery spoken by Daniel (Dan. 2:35), Nahum (Nahum 1:10), Proverbs (Prov. 10:25), and so many more.

Before you say that there wasn’t clarity in the Old Testament concerning these issues, Peter actually goes back to the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah to give us a picture of the unredeemed’s fate (2 Peter 2:6). This both mirrors Old Testament language about a final, definitive judgement while contributing to and confirming its position.

But the New Testament’s about burning forever, right!?

The New Testament does kick off with John the Baptist’s promise that the axe is already at the root of that every tree that does not bear good fruit will be cut down and thrown into the fire (Matt. 3:10). Jesus echoes this imagery (Matt. 7:19). But I believe that everywhere that it talks about fires (whether unquenchable or not), the fire represents God’s hatred of sin . . . it isn’t going to be extinguished before it consumes what’s thrown into it.

By and large, destruction is the imagery used to communicate the fate of those outside of the cross (James 4:12, 2 Peter 2:3, 2 Peter 3:7, 1 Tim. 6:9, Phil. 3:18–19, 1 Cor. 3:17, 1 Thess. 5:3). It’s verses like these that seem to indicate that destruction, and not perpetual torment, is the fate of the wicked.

This point of view is also communicated in the way the New Testament talks about death:

• Those who believe in Christ will not perish (John 3:16)
• Those who are “perishing” have an aroma of one going from death to death—as opposed to those who in Christ have the aroma of those going from life to life (2 Cor. 2:15–16)
• The wages of sin are death (Romans 6:23)
• Four times Revelation talks about the “second death” (2:11; 20:6,14; 21:8). If we are doomed to die and then face judgement, it only makes sense that death would represent an actual cessation of life and not and ongoing but tortured existence.

That covers a tiny bit of the Scriptural argument for a final, terminal judgement. As I said before, I’ll probably do one more post addressing some of the arguments raised by ECT apologists.

I was considering addressing what the historical church believed about judgement prior to Augustine. But I think that Glenn did it better than I would over on AfterLife.

The post Some Scriptural Arguments against an Eternal Hell appeared first on Jayson D. Bradley.

I just finished the favorite book of the year—and it hasn’t even been released yet. Reading Runaway Radical by Amy Hollingsworth and her son Jonathan was like looking in a funhouse mirror of  my own idealism, radicalism, and disillusionment.

Cathartic, powerful, and emotional, Runaway reminded me how much of our hard-won wisdom crawls from the ashes of misplaced devotion.

My ancient/future radicalism

I’d been ministering in Charismatic churches for nearly 20 years—and it was wearing me out. I was growing tired of the stress of ensuring that the emotional level of each service would be a ten. I was tired of the premium people placed on new and wild interpretations of Scripture that made them more zealous but less rooted in theological history and tradition.

But I persevered because I placed such a premium on charismatic expectancy. I believe in a personal God who wants to move, heal, and interact. I expect a supernatural aspect to my relationship with God, otherwise I’m just believing in a philosophy. So, despite some of the flakiness and excess, I endured.

Then I discovered the mystics.

My descent into mystical madness

I was given a copy of Cloud of Unknowing by a friend and I read it quickly. Then I was off to the races, devouring John of the Cross, Julian of Norwich, Teresa of Ávila, the Desert Fathers. . . it had all the stuff I had longed from my charismatic background but was missing—it was deep, historical, and profound. God was knowable and, if I rightly applied myself toward my spiritual formation, I could have a nearly conversational relationship with him.

My frustration was overwhelming. I idealized a lifestyle I couldn’t replicate and I found myself in a cycle of trying harder, failing, hating myself, not caring, and then repentance before the cycle would start over. This sequence contributed to some of the worst decisions and experiences of my life.

My idealistic nature didn’t read these centuries-old books and adapt them in ways that made sense to a twenty-first century lifestyle. No. Instead, I started to see the responsibilities of modern life as a hindrance and stumbling block to the higher calling of my devotional life.

By the time I realized what was going on, I had done a lot of damage to myself—and others. It took a nearly two-year hiatus from the trappings of faith to feel normal again.

The books weren’t really the problem. I still love and read them. The problem was that, at that point in my life, I wasn’t prepared to think critically about the demand they placed on me.

Runaway Radical

Pre-order it today for $11.95!

All of that’s a rather long, self-indulgent preface to what I loved about this book. Runaway tells the heartbreaking story of Jonathan’s own idealism, radicalism, and ultimate disenchantment.

Through Amy and Jonathan’s narrative, we watch Jon embrace radicalism’s call to give up everything for the poor and live a life of revolutionary dependence on God. It’s hard enough to watch him struggle the implications of fanaticism and legalism, but the stress is compounded by aggressive mismanagement of ministry organizations and hyper-authoritative church leadership. As if that’s not enough, we see it all through the eyes of a mother who, through no fault of her own, doesn’t see how bad things have gotten until too much damage has been done.

As I read, and re-read, Runaway, I was taken by the fact that Jonathan and I seem to belong to the same fraternity of people who struggle with an “all-in personality.” Whether it’s the stringent expectations of radicalism, mysticism, orthodoxy, purity, holiness, or any number of micro-legalisms, there are those of us who have that perfect mixture of faith, naiveté, sincerity, and desire to live lives that “count,” that we’ll often discount or overlook the implications of our current, well-intended trajectories and run headlong into trouble.

I know there are writers seeking to rescue those people who conflate Christianity and the American dream, but their message usually misses that target. It’s the idealistic causeoholics like me who gobble up their books, messages, and conferences. And with each successive call to a more radical lifestyle, we lose our moorings and end up adrift on a sea of new legalisms and dashed on the rocks of an imbalanced gospel.

There seems to be no end to traps available for the sincere to fall into. When your primary objective is to please the Lord, you’re ripe for demands to sacrifice more and more.

I don’t want to give away too much about the book, and I’ll probably be talking about my personal epiphanies from reading Runaway Radical in upcoming posts. In fact, I intend to interview Amy and/or Jonathan when the opportunity presents itself.

Suffice it to say, I loved this book. It was raw, open, and honest. You can tell the words were penned while the wounds were still fresh and weeping, and the pages are a salve to the writers and the reader.

It’s part mystery, part biography, part drama, and all cautionary tale. I wish I could give a copy to everyone. The implications travel so far beyond the gospel of radicalism to touch every believer.

If you pre-order a copy from Amazon right now, you’ll save 25%. I suggest you go there right now and pre-order yours. When it ships in February, you’ll have forgotten about the order and it will be a complete surprise! I promise you won’t be sorry.

The post Runaway Radical: When Idealism Meets Reality appeared first on Jayson D. Bradley.

I posted a news story on Facebook the other day that had a Scientology angle to it. It wasn’t too long before we (yes, myself included) were making judgmental, snide comments about Scientology and the implications of believing something so stupid.

Then I had one of those rare moments of clarity—well, rare for me anyway. Who am I to treat the beliefs of others with disdain?

I believe some pretty silly things

Humor me a second, while I lead you through a little exercise. If you’re a Christian, I want you to try and look at your beliefs objectively for a moment. Just observe them from an outsider’s perspective.

Depending on your denominational or theological background, you may believe any number of the following things:

• All the horrors of the world—including death—can be traced back to the first man and woman eating fruit.
• Whether benevolent or malevolent, the world is influenced by typically invisible, spiritual beings.
• God flooded the world but saved eight people and all the animals on ship.
• God freed the nation he created from slavery by—among other things—killing an entire country’s firstborn children (and firstborn animals).
• God overthrew a city by having people march around it multiple times followed by horn blowing and yelling.
• Part of God’s plan required genocide.
• God entered into humanity, becoming fully man, through the womb of a teenage virgin.
• Through the crucifixion of this sinless God-Man, we’re forgiven our sins before God.
• This God-Man’s sacrifice is only applied if you accept it. If you don’t accept it you may be destroyed—or worse.
• This God-Man rose from the dead, had some meetings, ate some fish, and then flew up to heaven.
• In his place, this God-Man sent a spirit (also God, but yet distinctly different) to live inside people.
• Having this spirit inside of you may enable you to speak other languages, heal people, or be filled with arcane knowledge about the future or other people.
• God responds to prayer.
• Everything we need to know about God is found in a book written by a bunch of different authors (influenced by God, of course) over a span of around 1500 years.
• At any moment, all the people who believe in this God-Man might just disappear, or at least the God-Man will descend from the clouds.

You probably don’t believe all these things, but it’s likely quite a few of them are part of your worldview. And this is only a smattering of the outlandish stuff in found in Scripture.

Can we admit that Christianity is kind of crazytown?

Because many of us are raised in the church and weened on the gospel, we lose sight of just how crazy all this sounds. When you factor in a steady diet of apologetic books by authors like Josh McDowell and Lee Strobel, it’s easy for us to think, “it’s only irrational people who don’t believe.”

That’s simply not the case.

The Gospel for dummies

Paul suggests that God intentionally revealed his story in such a way that the “foolish things in world would shame the wise.”(1 Cor. 1:7) It isn’t the most intelligent and learned among us that think our way into belief, it’s the simplest. In fact, in God’s economy intelligence might put you at a deficit when it comes to seeing gospel truth.

Quite frankly, it embarrasses me, but yeah, I guess I’m saying that. No one’s going to be able to boast about how they’re a Christian because they’re so smart. (1 Cor. 1:29) When push comes to shove, belief is a grace that’s received as much as it’s discovered.

This shames those of us who are always working hard to prove to everyone else how smart we are. The true Gospel will always humble us—even in the manner in which it’s accepted.

My point here is that, despite what we want to believe, we’re probably not Christians because the Bible makes so much rational sense. Many of us believe in spite of the fact that there’s a lot in Christianity that just seems . . . well . . . foolish.

This should make us more humble

You’d think that we’d have an awareness of this foolishness. You’d think that it would make us more humble. You’d think we’d be more generous and understanding of the world’s various beliefs—but we don’t seem to be.

We Christians look at the philosophies and beliefs of others and we scoff, condescend, and make fun. As if a completely impartial person with no Spirit influence would look at Buddhism, Islam, Christianity, and Zoroastrianism and say, “well, it’s obvious that Christianity is true because it’s just so logical.”

Paul called the gospel “foolishness to the Gentiles.” (1 Cor. 1:23) The Gentiles that Paul was thinking of weren’t idiots. They were the Greek philosophers that every Hellenized Jew knew well. In Paul’s eyes, these people, raised under the influence of thinkers like Xenocrates, Plutarch, Aristotle, and Lucretius, would have viewed the Gospel with bemused skepticism. It was just too unsophisticated to be taken seriously.

That’s not to say that there isn’t anything intelligent in Christianity. It’s where we find Christ, and it is Christ “who has become for us wisdom from God.” (1 Cor. 1:30) When, through our behavior, we embody Christ, we personify the very wisdom of God that is found in the Scripture.

When we mock, chide, and scornfully dismiss the beliefs of others, it must be because we’ve forgotten that we weren’t convinced by sensible information, but, rather, we were won over by an irrational incarnation.

The post The Gospel’s Too Silly to Be Mocking Other Faiths appeared first on Jayson D. Bradley.

All my life I’ve heard the term “underprivileged.” It was used when we talked about people in impoverished countries or children who needed assistance with school lunches. I’ve never heard anyone take exception to the term.

But for some reason when you bring up the idea there are people who are privileged, folks get real bent out of shape. This seems a little crazy to me since you can’t have people who are underprivileged without having people who are privileged.

Part of the problem is that, if we’re going to imagine that there’s a privileged people, it’s someone else—not us.

The spectrum of privilege

If you lined up everyone in the world according their access to healthy food, pure water, shelter, and sustainable wages, you’d have the most underprivileged people on one end of the scale, and the most privileged people in the world on the other. In many ways it’s no one’s fault where they are on that scale. If you were born in the west, you’re going to naturally find yourself a clustered with the privileged.

In fact, based on just these criteria, the poorest people in any particular western country would still find themselves on the higher end of the worldwide privilege spectrum.

As I said earlier, where you land is typically outside of your control. That said, there are also systemic injustices that help maintain the spectrum as we know it. Some of the poorer countries suffer from civil unrest and terrible governments who oppress them. Some of the businesses and governments in more privileged countries take advantage of poorer nations by exploiting them and taking their resources.

So, while it might not be anyone’s fault where they are on the spectrum, it is the responsibility for justice-minded people on the more privileged end of the spectrum—this should include all followers of Christ—to do what they can to assist the people on the lower end. At the very least, they should opt out of practices that further exploit them.

Privilege is more than money

We can modify that spectrum we created earlier by factoring in other aspects that affect quality of life—but we need to give them appropriate weight according to their culture of origin.

There’s a huge re-juggling of this spectrum when we factor in gender. By simply being born a woman, your privilege is greatly affected. If you’re a woman in the Democratic Republic of Congo, not only do you have to struggle with the economic issues which affect daily life, you live in constant fear of violence. Rape is so frequent that UN investigators have called it unprecedented. Of the 775 million people over the age of 15 who can’t read or write, 2/3 of them are women.

Other factors that greatly affect this scale are race, religion, sexual orientation, social class or caste, and health/disability. And again, we need to weigh each one according to many factors. For instance, it’s much better to be born a woman in Iceland than it is in Nepal. It’s better to be gay in South Africa than in Russia.

Privilege at home

This spectrum dramatically changes when you go from an international scale to a national one. People on the lower end of the economic spectrum in America may find themselves higher on an international scale, but it really doesn’t matter within their current context. It doesn’t help a mother of three struggling to make it in Detroit to tell them, “Buck up, you’re doing much better than the average mother in Mali.”

Race, gender, sexual orientation, religion, social class, and disability have a great effect on the quality of life in America (or any country)—and to deny that they don’t just seems ludicrous. I’ve been looking for a job at the same time as a close friend of mine. In a conversation the other day he said to me, “I put my nickname and not my given name on my résumé because I get a lot fewer call backs when they see that I’m Mexican.”

I don’t have the real estate in the particular blog to offer social proofs for how each factor affects privilege in the United States, but the proof is there if you’re serious about becoming educated.

But keep in mind, whenever you hear another white guy talking about those “fat cats in Washington” or “trust fund babies,” they’re talking about privilege.

Who are you to tell me I’m privileged!?

One of the arguments I hear all the time, especially from Bill O’Reilly fans, goes something like this, “How can I be privileged? I’ve worked my ass off to get where I am. How dare you call me privileged!?”

I’m a healthy, straight, white, middle-class man, and I’ve had virtually no say in any of those factors. This doesn’t mean I haven’t had to work to succeed; it means that I haven’t had to work around many of the economic and sociological boundaries that others have. Sure, there are many people of color who are more successful than I am, but by-and-large, all things being equal:

• I’m less likely to be arrested
• I’m more likely to go to college
• I’m more likely to get called back for a job
• I’m more likely to find adequate housing

This mythology that, no matter who you are, you can be whatever you want if you just work hard makes it difficult to have this discussion. Working hard matters, there’s no question about it. But this is by no means a level playing field and by pretending that it is, or that all cultural barriers can be bypassed by working harder, we solidify issues of privilege.

When you look at the pay gap, there’s a huge discrepancy when it comes to race, and an even greater one when it comes to gender.

One thing I find extremely troubling when talking about this issue is how seldom Native Americans are factored into the discussion. I just want to go on record by saying that not only do I think our first-nation people are some of the most underprivileged in America, they’re even under represented by voices who contend for more civil equality.

Does Jesus care about privilege

One of the most damning criticisms of Christianity is that it’s not only accepted its privileged position in the west, but that it also exploits it. If we’re being honest, it’s not too hard to concede the point. Not only can an argument be made that Christianity has been complicit in the subjugation of Native Americans, the economic success of slavery, and the fight against women’s suffrage, it can be argued that, within this “melting pot” of races and religions, Christians have often sought a dominant role in American life.

I recognize that there were Christians who fought for women’s suffrage, for native Americans, and against slavery. This doesn’t negate the overwhelming evidence that Christians have often been on the wrong side of issues of privilege. It’s no wonder that people puzzle over whether the Jesus of Christianity cares about the issue of privilege at all.

Not only did Jesus abandon privilege to walk among us (Phil. 2:5—11), his concern for the underprivileged helped put him in the crosshair of the religious establishment. He spoke up for the poor, healed the sick of the racially underprivileged (even when it at times when it wasn’t religiously acceptable to do so—Mark 3:1—6), and spoke up for and treated women like valued and important members of society.

Many of Jesus parables and teaching included elements that would undo first-century (and modern privilege). I see the Jesus’ parable of Lazarus and the rich man (Luke 16:19-31) as being about both the economic and national privilege. Beyond Jesus, it’s obvious that the introduction of Christianity was intended to plant sociological seeds that would drive a stake into the heart of privilege.

What do I do with white guilt?

Many of the problems we’re talking about are systemic. I didn’t choose them, and I’m not sure feeling guilty about it does anyone any good. The person who should feel guilty is the one who refuses to admit that it’s a legitimate issue.

The bigger question is, “What do we do about it?”

Once we recognize the issue of privilege we’re responsible for our response. We can’t continue to soak up the benefits of privilege and deny they don’t exist.

It’s not enough for me to reject the idea of privilege. I can’t publicly decry my societal position and go on with life as usual. I might get a boost of moral superiority by saying “I reject my privileged status as a white male in America,” but it doesn’t change the fact that I’m going to still benefit from this systemic weaknesses in American culture. So I have to do something else. I have to subvert the system—I have to leverage my privilege for the benefit of others.

I had a friend who laid into me because of the popularity of my blog. Because I was a white, straight male, I was perpetuating privilege by having anything to say that anyone would want to read. That irritated the hell out of me. If I have more of a voice than someone else, it does neither of us any good for me give up my voice so that we’re both mute. If I have a platform, I consider it my responsibility to elevate marginalized individuals. I just need to be very careful not to speak on their behalf.

One thing I have been horrified at this week is how easy it is for white people to speak for black Americans as if they understand their situation from reading a couple blog posts or watching the news. I have absolutely no right to talk as if I understand what it’s like to be black, female, gay, handicapped, Muslim, or for any other group that I have not experienced from the inside. But I do feel responsible for hearing and raising their voices.

That said, here are list of blogs I read regularly:

• Tangentials
• Christena Cleveland
• Sarah Bessey
• Shoopscope
• Kimberly Knight
• Taking Jesus Seriously
• By Their Strange Fruit

The first step for a stronger, more empathetic church is to break out of our intellectual, theological, and sociological cul-de-sacs. It is a lot of work not to standard and prescribe my perspective for everyone. I tend to think I’m pretty objective, but my objectivity is colored by my limited experience and understanding. It’s time for the church in America to provide room for more voices.

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Our little town puts on a lighted Christmas parade every year. It’s basically tractors with Christmas lights, but my wife seems to love it. It’s sort of like a living Garrison Keillor story complete with hypothermia.

So we loaded up our camping chairs, stopped for some Chinese food, and headed down to Front St. to scope out some ideal real estate. Most of the town empties onto the boulevard and if you’re late to the party, you’re going to miss out on a choice spot.

We ended up sitting next to a family of four with two adorable little kids. While most of us were sitting comfortably in the chairs we brought, this couple stood out—literally. They were standing patiently with their kids watching down the road for the parade to start.  We chatted with them, like small-town people do, about their recent relocation to the area and our mutual affection for Thai food.

At some point the mother went to take one of the kids to a bathroom, and the father was left standing there holding his daughter. It was then that a group of five across the street spotted what seemed to be a chance to upgrade their location and, without a word, rushed over and began claiming the space left by this mother who had ran to the restroom. It felt like I was watching a re-imagined version of the Columbus story.

As they edged this guy out of the space he’d been saving for 45 minutes, my wife and I were incredulous. To this guy’s credit, he didn’t make a scene. He gave them some room and held on to just enough space for his family to ensure that his they could keep a portion of their spot.

After a few minutes, his daughter started wandering off and he went to grab her. The second he vacated his spot, this group moved their chairs to fill it. He returned incredulous, “We’ve waited here for 45 minutes, and you’ve just moved in and stole our spot.”

The woman looked at him unfazed and said, “Oh, we thought you left.” She then scooted her chair over and gave up barely enough space for one person to stand. Frustrated, the family started walking down the street looking for somewhere else to stand.

My wife immediately said to me, “Lets give them our chairs.” It was a good idea. We didn’t have kids with us, we had a choice spot, and it wouldn’t hurt us to stand—so we ran down the street and encouraged them to come back. I’d like to think that somehow the act of giving up our spot shamed the interlopers, but they were entirely oblivious.

The problem with evil

Most evil isn’t done with malicious intent—it’s often just self-absorbed people unaware of the needs and well-being of those around them. Driven to satisfy raw emotions like desire, fear, and lust, we disregard (or refuse to consider) the ways our behavior affects others. On a micro level it looks like stealing a family’s spot at a Christmas parade, but on a macro level it might look like a company making record-breaking profits and paying their employees poverty wages.

When Jesus encourages his followers to be the servants of all (Mk 9:35), he isn’t just talking about the act of serving each other. He’s addressing the way we consider and intuit each others needs. A good steward doesn’t elevate their personal ambition, need to acquire, or self preservation above every other consideration. When I think back on my life’s biggest regrets, they all have to do with my inability to consider others above myself.

What’s tragic is how quickly individual selfishness becomes systemic evil. When self-obsessed people incorporate, they create organizations, businesses, and countries that are capable of justifying great evil.

Our definition of evil

I am convinced that part of the problem is that we don’t see our selfish behavior as evil. Evil’s a word we reserve for terrible things like murder or rape. Going to a concert and laying out personal items to over thirty chairs in the front to reserve them for my friends isn’t . . . evil. It’s just . . . you know . . . I just wanted them.

Maybe we won’t really make any movement forward until we see the way we elevate ourselves over others as part of evil’s DNA. Murder, rape, racism, and exploitation are the extreme versions of the little evils we perpetrate daily.

Why evil always seems to be winning

I don’t enjoy going to the movies that much anymore. I always end up sitting by people who won’t shut up, refuse to turn off their phones, or are generally unaware that they’re not at home watching television.

When I was a kid you could count on public censure to keep you in line when you didn’t have the self-discipline to do it yourself. If I was acting up in a theater, I knew the crowd would collectively shush me. That doesn’t seem to be the case anymore.

When that group began crowding out the family on the sidewalk, the family was faced with a choice. Would they speak up? Because they chose not to make a scene, their space was absorbed by these people who were aggressive enough to take it. Truth be told, because I didn’t say anything these people were allowed to move in a stake their claim.

I am convinced that a lot of good is left undone because good people don’t want to make a scene. In fact, I think we’re encouraged not to. This is a tragedy because many people, driven by their passions, are unhindered by social expectations and niceties when it comes to satisfying their desires. The silence of good people not only doesn’t give them an opportunity to check themselves and their emotions, it tacitly condones their behavior.

This isn’t peacemaking—it’s peace keeping. There’s a huge difference.

The post Recognizing the Evil in Our Everyday Selfishness appeared first on Jayson D. Bradley.

Ferguson, Eric Garner, CIA torture reports, Bill Cosby: I can’t get away from terrible, heartbreaking news. But more than that, I’m dismayed by the fractured, combative nature in the dialog surrounding these issues.

I had a friend recently say that she was withdrawing from Facebook through the Christmas season because she just couldn’t take it. She wasn’t going to let the constant vitriol ruin her Christmas spirit.

I totally understood her point, but was instantly convinced that there wasn’t a more appropriate time of year for the societal wheels to be coming off. In many ways, I’m convinced that Advent season is closer in spirit to Lent than it is the season of joy we struggle to manufacture every year.

The first Noel

Israel was oppressed and splintered when a confused teenage girl gave birth to our savior in a filthy stable. The 99% scraped to get by, moralistic religionists denied goodwill and favor to undesirables, and the government was not above resorting to unimaginable violence when the situation called for it.

And despite the fact that the heavens seemed impregnable and silent, there was hope—hope of deliverance, hope of reconciliation, hope in a reversal of power and fortune.

But it was the hope of the occupied, the despondent, the . . . hopeless.

Jesus’ birth didn’t change everything, or at least not in the way they were expecting, and not immediately. In fact, we’re still waiting for the reconciliation of all things. We’re still waiting for transformation. We’re still waiting for a deliverer. We’re still waiting for salvation.

Waiting for Godot

Advent is the season of preparation and longing for Christ’s nativity.

After Jesus’ death, despite rumors of a resurrection, he still left the Jews an occupied people. Their temple, the central identifier of them as people of God, was still destroyed.

But in the church, God planted the ember of his Spirit with the intention that it would erupt into a fire and spread . . . carrying with it the character and sacrificial nature of Christ. And in the cross (both the one on which Christ was crucified and the one the church is to carry), Christ displayed the character—and the foolishness—of God.

Advent is still a time of hope and longing. We’re still waiting for God to reveal himself. We’re still waiting for the church to collectively eschew the temptations of power and coercion in order to sacrificially serve the least of these. We’re still waiting for age-old injustices like racism, poverty, exploitation, and torture to cease (or for the people of God to publicly and privately condemn and combat them.)

We are still waiting.

The wrong will fail, the right prevail

I don’t want to hide from the rage, distrust, and fragmentation bubbling up in the culture. I want to face and incorporate it into this holy Advent season. I want to prayerfully consider how I contribute. I want to grieve. I want to hope.

When Christ came to us, he came as a vulnerable infant. I ache for Christ to fill his church and make it just as vulnerable and reliant.  I believe that the weakness and foolishness of God is greater than the cunning and authority of man. I long for the church to embrace the former and reject the latter.

Advent isn’t passive; it’s active. Christmas isn’t about looking back to some idealized experience in the past where God revealed himself, angels sang, and wise men worshiped. Christmas is about more than the embodiment of deity. It is the revelation of God’s plan to redeem all things to himself.

We are to be in employed in that work. We are to be instruments to reconciliation, peace, and justice. Because we’re often not (and incapable on our own), I feel we have a responsibility to look at the disharmony and hatred around us and let it break our hearts until our whole life becomes a season of advent . . .

And we find ourselves impatiently waiting for God to reveal himself.

The post Embracing the Heartbreak of the Advent Season appeared first on Jayson D. Bradley.

Sometimes I’ll stumble across someone promoting my blog and they’ll say something like, “I don’t agree with everything this guy says, but his blog is pretty thought provoking.” I’m often left wondering, “who do you always agree with?” I’m forever curious why people feel the need to disavow everything they disagree with.

What would be lost to the person who said, “Hey, check this blog out. It’s pretty thought provoking.” I have a hard time thinking something is thought provoking if it’s full of thoughts I already have.

It’s an interesting behavior that seems peculiar to Christians. If you show appreciation for any artist, writer, or celebrity, you need to distance yourself from anything disagreeable. I’m amazed every time I see someone quote Martin Luther King Jr. with the disclaimer, “Now, I know he had some issues in his private life and wasn’t always faithful in his marriage, but I liked this quote . . .”

I remember November 29, ’01 like it was yesterday. I don’t think I’ve had a celebrity death affect me like the loss of George Harrison—he had a huge influence on me as a musician. We had worship practice the night he died and of course it came up. My pastor at the time said to me, “You know it was George who got the Beatles all mixed up with Eastern mysticism.” And with that one comment, Harrison’s life was summed up by the thing that pastor found most disagreeable.

He wouldn’t have felt the need to dismiss my point if I had said, “I don’t really agree with Harrison about Krishna, but I think his lead break in Nowhere Man is one of the most perfect solos ever.”

Guilty by association

Why? Because your purity wasn’t just tied to your character and behavior, it was inexplicably linked to your associations. Touching someone unclean, made you unclean. Associating with someone unsavory, made you unsavory.

The thing that made Jesus’ parable about the good Samaritan (Lk 10:25-37) so powerful was the fact that there wasn’t anything good about Samaritans. We’ve kind of lost the frame of reference that makes this parable so frustrating to its original audience. But Jesus didn’t care . . .

In Christ’s social economy, sin is nontransferable. It doesn’t rub off on you because of you’ve rubbed shoulders with the wrong people.

Is that same conviction being carried by his followers? Well . . .

Disowning the heretics

To the first-century Jew, social collateral was tied to heritage—being one of God’s chosen people. There was definitely a hierarchy based on geography and gender, but simply being a gentile was enough to put you on the outside.

As I said, Christ obliterated that perspective, but did he change it in his followers? Many would say yes. Generally speaking, Christians are pretty comfortable around “sinners,” but that’s as long as they’re convinced the relationship is leading to someone’s conversion.

What I find interesting is how closely purity is tied to orthodoxy of belief. A Christian might be comfortable around someone whose choices they don’t agree with—until that “sinner” claims to be a Christian.

What’s incredibly frustrating is that Christianity’s distinctive beliefs seem to change as you move throughout Christendom. You might think we’d have some essential standard that binds us all together, like a belief in the redeeming power of Christ’s sacrifice and his resurrection, for instance. But that’s until you witness a celebrity pastor like John Piper publicly disavowing another prominent pastor, Rob Bell, for raising questions about hell—this in a tweet that simple reads, “Farewell Rob Bell.”

In many circles, the litmus test for Christian spirituality lies in correct doctrine. It isn’t tied to having the posture Christ describes in his sermon on the mount (Mt. 5—7) or the focused empathy you find in the parable of the sheep and the goats (Mt. 25:31–46); it is intrinsically tied to correct beliefs.

Am I saying that what you believe doesn’t matter? Of course not. I have very strongly held beliefs. Would they pass muster with every Christian I meet? No. Do I feel this negatively affects my ability to be reconciled to God through Christ. For heaven’s sake, no.

Loving the alien

Is it possible to believe something fiercely in a fashion that’s both nondefensive and charitable? It has to be. If you believe that Christ walked this earth as an incarnated God, then it’s easy to believe that no one has ever come remotely closer to being right. But I can’t imagine him feeling the need to distance himself from the behavior or beliefs of people he might otherwise appreciate.

This doesn’t mean that he didn’t contend for the truth, speak strongly toward those he felt were wrong, or correct those with misguided understanding. He did (although one might point out the that his ferocity in doing so was in direct proportion to the dogmatic rigidity of the person being confronted).

While he might love me in spite of my great faults, I don’t believe that he would stand before anyone and say, “I love Jayson even though . . .” His love comes without ellipses. But see, he has nothing to fear. He has no anxiety that someone is going to question his righteousness because of his association with me. In fact, it’s my associate with him that purifies me.

I think fear is one of the reasons we’re so quick to disaffiliate ourselves from others because of their behavior or wrong beliefs. I can value an artist based on their skill, but be reticent to share my appreciation with other Christians because I fear an unspoken association of me with the artist’s faults.

But let’s be honest, if it’s essential to be correct in all things and without fault to have your work or thoughts appreciated, who can stand?

I had an interesting exchange on Twitter with Marlena Graves about her article Is Self-Promotion Sinful?  I had posted a Holden Caulfield quote, and she pointed me to her article. I was instantly struck by this line,

“Though there were elements of Salinger’s personal life that were reportedly unsavory, I believe we can learn from his efforts to spurn fame and self-promotion because they can lead to phoniness, something Salinger abhorred.”

I wondered why we couldn’t just learn from Salinger without having to make mention of his reported unsavory behavior. I asked her about it, and she confirmed my own experience. Considering the audience and the place she worked, she felt obligated to do so. I have often felt the same way. Luckily, neither of us feel that obligation any longer.

What if we could learn from someone we didn’t entirely agree with? What if we could value the gifts people possessed even if we couldn’t condone all of their behavior?

What if we focused on whatever was true, noble, right, pure, lovely, admirable,excellent, and praiseworthy (Phil. 4:8). Maybe we can find those attributes in people, lifestyles, and religions we might otherwise disagree with—and maybe that’s ok.

The post What If You Could Value Something without Agreeing? appeared first on Jayson D. Bradley.

Sometimes people will say to me, “One of my favorite things about Christmas is how everywhere I go, I get to hear songs about Jesus. It’s like the mall is full of Christian music for a whole month.”

But what if the only thing you knew about the gospel story was based on the Christmas songs you had heard. You’d be prone to all sorts of questionable facts and superstitions like:

1. Jesus’ divinity made him a super baby

One of my favorite eye-rolling Christmas lines comes from “Away in a Manger.” When a bunch of rambunctious cows wake up the infant Christ, “no crying he makes.” Why? Because crying is what filthy little sinner babies do.

On top of that, we get the imagery from “Silent Night” that radiant beams were shooting out of Jesus’ cherubic and godly little face.

“Honey, can you drape a blanket over the baby’s face? I am trying to sleep.”

2. History is cyclical

Ancient people believed that history revolved in an ever-turning cycle of ages—some golden, some not so much. It’s a fatalistic idea that suggests that no matter what you do, some eras are just going to be terrible and mankind just needs to wait for the cycle to swing around again.

Was the era Jesus ushered in contingent upon God’s timing or the “ever-circling” years like “It Came upon a Midnight Clear” suggest?

“For lo! the days are hastening on,
By prophets seen of old,
When with the ever-circling years
Shall come the time foretold”

3. Jesus was visited by a trio of wisemen

It has to be true, right!? I mean it’s in the title of the song, “We Three Kings.” It has to be true—I mean, come on, three gifts!? It only makes sense.

I find it interesting how much this idea has wormed itself into Christmas consciousness. You never see more or less than three wisemen in any Christmas picture or nativity scene, but we have no idea how many wisemen there were. It could have been 50—it could have been 500.

4. Jesus was born into a European winter wonderland

Who knows when Jesus was born? No one. Was it in December? Maybe. Was it snowing? Probably not.

The ground most certainly didn’t sit “hard as iron” with “water like a stone.” I think one of the gospel writers would have mentioned if “snow had fallen—snow on snow.”

We tend to place the context of the incarnation into our western holiday experience. It isn’t just “In the Bleak Midwinter” that does this. “The First Noel” tells us that it all occurred on a “cold winter’s night.”

5. Jesus and Mary took three ships into Bethlehem

LOL . . . WUT? How’d they manage that?

Does any of this matter? Am I one of those “if it isn’t all 100% true, it’s rubbish and Christmas is a fraud” folks?

No.

But I think it’s a good opportunity to recognize that we all see truth through cultural eyes, and that, like Christmas carols, many of of our theological beliefs are more perspective than divine truth. Does Satan cause me to think bad things? Does God control all of my life’s events? Is salvation secured through a mimicked prayer at an altar call?

After a while, Christmas carols worm their way into our consciousness and affect the way we envision Christmas. Like that, many of the things we emphasize, prioritize, and extrapolate come more from cultural concerns and considerations than they do actual Scripture.

Things like our weird fixation on end times, the strange western conflation of material possessions and blessing, or they way we prioritize certain sins or virtues over others reveals more about our values than Scripture’s.

Maybe we need to become as much students of the lenses through which we assimilate information as we are of the information itself.

Because it might not matter how many wisemen there were, but you can be certain there are areas we run pretty far afield in the things we emphasize. And if we aren’t careful some of the ideas we value might be as Scriptural as the virgin Mary and Jesus sailing into Bethlehem on Christmas day in the morning.

The post 5 Bits of Rubbish in Beloved Christmas Carols appeared first on Jayson D. Bradley.

“Mystics without study are only spiritual romantics who want relationship without effort.”—Calvin Miller

I live in a quaint American town—a Norman Rockwellian picture of small-town USA. There’s a church on almost every corner and a palpable sense of nostalgia down every street.

It’s a farm town full of old Dutch families who still resort to their mother tongue when certain feelings need expression. Inevitably, someone is going to tell you that they’re “benouwd” when they’re feeling anxious, depressed, crammed into an stuffy room.

A proudly devout and principled people, they’re generally disciplined in practice, conservative in perspective, and uncompromising in posture.

They’re wonderful despite their love of terrible treats like double-salted licorice. Seriously . . . that stuff is beyond nasty.

The downward trajectory of biblical literacy

One thing I find interesting is how values have been passed down and received in this close-knit community. It’s an interesting look at what happens to Christianity when it becomes part of a community’s identity.

If you stop nearly anyone on the sidewalk, they’ll tell you that Christianity is one of their most important and primary identifiers. You’ll find the streets are packed on Sunday morning as nearly everyone, en masse, floods the town’s churches.

There are quite a few people in their seventies who I’ve had the most interesting scriptural discussions with and, peppered throughout normal, run-of-the-mill conversations, they’ll drop nuggets that reveal how they draw on a deep, treasured reservoir of Scripture in their everyday lives. But I meet more and more twenty- and thirty-somethings who, although they were raised in the church and have a generally high view of Christianity, are unfamiliar with the much of the Scriptures.

On a sociological level, it’s fascinating to see this generational devolution of scriptural literacy happen. It’s curious because there hasn’t really been a loss of Christianity as a cultural identity. Younger generations still value church attendance, as well as Christian literature, music, and radio. While there are many of the trappings of Christianity, there is a loss of depth and breadth of biblical understanding.

But don’t get me wrong; I don’t think this is a problem specific to my town—and it’s definitely not universal. But it’s representative of a growing problem with Christians everywhere. It’s just particularly telling to find it in towns with such a strong “Christian” identity.

This is not an ideological problem

You might be tempted to think that this increasing lack in biblical depth is an ideological problem. I assure you it’s not. There are people with the highest view of Scripture who are not investing time in their holiest book. I know plenty of conservatives or inerrantists whose scriptural knowledge is as fleeting as those they would accuse of not valuing the Bible enough—sometimes more so.

I have, more than once, found myself in the strange position of defending a theological position to a person who was frustrated that I held it, but didn’t have the biblical background to understand why they disagreed with me.

One issue is that people think that, because they’ve been immersed in Christian culture, they have a greater biblical understanding than they do. In a recent Barna report, 81% of U.S. adults considered themselves fairly knowledgeable of the Bible but only 43% were able to name the first five books in the Old Testament, 81% of self-identified Christians contend that spiritual maturity is achieved by following biblical rules, and only 4% believe that poverty is a concern for the church.

How has this happened?

I think part of the problem is that Christians now prop up their biblical understanding with secondary sources: they read Max Lucado books, they watch their favorite pastors online, they listen to Christian music, they read Christian romance novels. And because all these sources use biblical language, allusions,  and passages, there’s a feeling that biblical understanding is being increased—but that’s not necessarily the case.

Even many of the Bible studies we’re part of focus on topics and use the Bible as a tool to reinforce a theological perspective rather than a living book that, with the help of the Spirit, speaks for itself. We’re really good at tearing apart pericopes and verses, but we’re losing our ability to understand books as a whole. We love hearing about different ways certain Greek words can be understood or translated (a Christian habit that, in the wrong hands, creates more problems

The way we dissect Scripture at verse level without understanding each book’s entirety, makes us like mad scientists, busy trying to understand everything at a molecular level, and no longer able see the beauty of a tree or recognize conceptual principles like love or loyalty.

There are many problems with trying to draw your biblical understanding out of secondary sources:

• Your knowledge of the Bible becomes piecemeal. Pretty soon you see the entire Bible as prooftexts and proverbs and there is no context for anything.
• You filter your understanding of passages through the interpretive lens of others. 1 Corinthians 13 is so much more than a backdrop for Amish romance novels, and Jeremiah 29:11 (the only verse from Jeremiah that most people know) has a more profound context and meaning than “God’s going to ensure nothing bad ever happens to me.”
• You inherit strong, dogmatic theological and ideological stances that you might not hold if you had a firmer grasp on the Bible.
• You value the Bible as a concept and not a living document. The reformers fought for was the idea of “sola scriptura,” that Scripture would be the sole basis for Christian authority. With that came the desire that people would be able to read and experience the Bible for themselves instead of having the Church be Scripture’s sole interpreter. But if we are going anywhere else more than we’re going to the Scripture, then we have taken interpretive responsibility out of the hands of the church and have given it to anyone. This can be incredible dangerous if you don’t have enough Scriptural acumen to know nonsense when you read it.
• You miss out on experiencing the revelation of spiritually quickened Scripture. If you haven’t had the supernatural experience of the Spirit illuminating Scripture, you’re missing out on one of the greatest joys of the Christian life.

I am in no way suggesting that there’s anything wrong with reading Christian books or listening to sermons. I’m simply saying that it is no substitute for reading, digesting, and experiencing the Word for yourself. It’s messy business to dive into Scripture without an interpreter. It will leave you frustrated and full of questions, and I think there’s a blessing in learning to be okay with that. In fact, I think there is sometimes more to be gained by living within our unanswered questions than there is to run immediately from Scripture to commentary.

So what do we do?

I want to encourage you to make 2015 a year where you get serious about all that Scripture you’re unfamiliar with. Dive into the prophets and law. It’s going to take discipline and effort. It definitely won’t feel fruitful or fun at times, but I assure you there’s value in it. Read the entire Bible this year—even if it’s just to say you’ve done it.

Read large passages at a time. Ignore chapters, verses, and headings. Try to understand a whole book before you try and dissect it into pieces. I wrote a post about taming your Bible study which had some good tips in it (if I may say so myself).

I have a really good friend who cares deeply about biblical literacy and runs a site called The Overview Bible Project. Part of the project required that he re-read the Bible in order that he might write (what turned out to be  really insightful) summaries for each book. His site also has wonderful infographics and more stuff on the way. If you’re a johnny-come-lately to the Bible, it’s a wonderful place to start.

So I am laying down the gauntlet. I don’t write this to shame anyone, but if you, like me, need to spend some more time in 2015 investing in experiencing Scripture first hand—I encourage you to join me.

“The Bible is very easy to understand. But we Christians are a bunch of scheming swindlers. We pretend to be unable to understand it because we know very well that the minute we understand, we are obliged to act accordingly.”―Søren Kierkegaard

The post Can We Talk about Biblical Illiteracy in the Church? appeared first on Jayson D. Bradley.

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“Sometimes I lie awake, night after night
Coming apart at the seams
Eager to please, ready to fight
Why do I go to extremes?”—Billy Joel

As I wrote in an earlier post, reading Runaway Radical was a profound experience. It moved me as a father, challenged me as a follower of Christ, and taunted me someone whose pendulum tends to swing pretty wide.

The book is Jonathan Hollingsworth’s personal testimony about Christian radicalism’s devastating effect on his personal journey and faith. At the same time, it’s his mother’s—author Amy Hollingsworth—story of the heartbreaking revelation that her child is walking a lonely, excruciating road. Like life, it’s a book filled with more ambiguity than answers.

One of the most troubling and rewarding aspects of Runaway is its lack of resolution. We leave Jonathan, newly released from the Egypt of his own expectations, wandering around in the desert of disillusionment.

Amy and Jonathan write it from the middle of that desert, a testament to uncertainty. Their willingness to be so vulnerable is an act of charity allowing us, as voyeurs, to discover and make peace with our own stories and questions.

The two of them were graciously willing to sit down and answer a few questions for my readers:

Jayson: After Jonathan’s experience, everyone’s wounds are raw and your relationship’s full of tension. What kind of person decides this would be the best time to rehash it all for a book? I mean, writing a book is trying in the most ideal circumstances. What were you hoping to get out of it? And do you feel you achieved it?

Amy Hollingsworth

Amy: A crazy kind of person? A desperate kind of person? For me there were two reasons. The first was that I was working on another book but Jonathan’s story kept creeping into the narrative of that book. At some point I realized his story was the book I was supposed to be writing. The second reason was sheer desperation. Jonathan had been sworn to secrecy, and I was complicit in that. I agreed only because I didn’t want to prolong his pain. But in the end, the silence was the worst blow.

So one morning I just knocked on his bedroom door and said, “Let’s tell your story.” There were days when I thought I was crazy for suggesting it. It was an enormous risk. We had no idea when we began how Jonathan’s story would resolve, if at all. But as it turned out, one was the key to the other. Having the freedom to tell his story is what allowed him to slowly recover. And I think you hear his voice getting stronger as the book progresses.

Jonathan: I think initially I was just trying to make sense of everything that happened. Writing is my coping mechanism; I can’t really move on or find closure until I’ve gotten it all down on paper. A couple months into the writing process I remember thinking to myself, I wish I had read something like this before I went to Africa. That’s when I realized I was writing a book. Because the story had a message.

Jayson: Amy, you are not unfamiliar with writing about personal relationships and experiences, but it seems in the past there has been a bit of a relational and chronological buffer between you and some of the events you discuss. In Runaway Radical, you don’t have the luxury of a lot of space (your subject is your son) or time (the events are still reverberating throughout your life). What kind of effect did that have in the process of writing Runaway over, let’s say, Letters from the Closet?

Jayson: Jon, If you had the ability to go back in time to three points in this story: the idealistic, radical Jonathan writing inspirational quotes in his closet, the alienated and nearly prisoner Jonathan in Africa, and the disillusioned Jonathan that returned, what would you say to the different Jonathans at those three points of your life?

Jonathan Hollingsworth

Jonathan: When it comes down to it, each Jonathan was just uncomfortable in his own skin. Radical Jonathan was ashamed of his privileged upbringing and the complacency of the American church, while prisoner Jonathan was ashamed to admit that his lofty ideals weren’t exactly holding up in the real world. Disillusioned Jonathan knew he didn’t want to be a radical anymore but he wasn’t sure where else he belonged.

So I think I would say the same thing to each Jonathan, that forcing myself into a mold was the wrong approach to spiritual growth and that it would only delay the moment when I was finally able to accept myself and my beliefs for what they were. I had a very rigid view of what a “real” Christian was supposed to be. In fact, I doubt whether radical Jonathan would even listen to anything I had to say now.

Jayson: Jon, were there any huge revelations or changes in perspective as you began to see your experience through your mother’s eyes in the writing process?

Jonathan: The temptation, I think, for anyone looking back on their own story is to pick it apart. You notice a lot of unflattering qualities about yourself. Patterns of behavior, perceived failures, etc. It can be a lot to swallow. So reading the story from my mother’s perspective really brought some balance to how I viewed my past. Reading her account reminded me that not every decision I made was totally misguided, that in spite of my skewed ideology, some truly meaningful experiences did come from it all.

Jayson: What was the most challenging thing for each of you to document in Runaway? A particular story? Emotion?

Jonathan: The lowest point in Runaway Radical is when I come home from Africa. Not only had I failed my chosen mission, but I felt like I had done more harm than good. The chapter ends with no resolution or silver lining because at the time there was none. The way we structured the narrative called for me to hit rock bottom and stay there for a while, and I think that section of the book really conveys that hopelessness. It’s still the hardest chapter for me to read. But to put a bow on that moment would have been disingenuous to the story.

Amy: Jonathan’s “I am home from Africa” chapter is the heart of Runaway Radical, the fulcrum the entire book rests upon. As for me, there is one story I was unable to tell straight out, in the

Jayson: It’s strange to write something personal and hear someone respond to it through the lens of their own experiences. You often think, “where did you get THAT from?” From people’s response, do you feel they get it? Are you happy with the response that it’s eliciting? Have you had any response that have made you shake your head?

Jonathan: I’m really surprised people aren’t more frustrated by the lack of hard-and-fast answers in the book. One of the things we tried to avoid in writing Runaway Radical was offering an extreme solution to an extreme problem. Because to me, that’s just fighting fire with fire. We really wanted readers to come to their own conclusions, especially since prescribed spirituality is what landed me in so much trouble in the first place.

Amy: The biggest surprise for me is how many readers have said, “This is my story.” The object and nature of the idealism often differ, but the fervor with which they approached it and the disillusionment that followed is nearly identical. One reviewer said it was “a coming-of-age story as moving and meaningful as Salinger,” and I was really grateful that someone picked up on the fact that this is the classic Bildungsroman—a young person ventures out into the world, suffers a great loss, and comes to maturity through disillusionment instead of through enlightenment. And sometimes the protagonist’s mother loses her illusions, too.

Pre-order your copy of Runaway Radical today

Runaway Radical releases on February 24, but it’s available to pre-order now from Amazon at a 25% discount. So, if you have that holiday Amazon card burning a hole in your pocket, or you are just looking for your next favorite book, head over there and pre-purchase your copy now.

Also check out the Runaway Radical Facebook page for stories, reviews, and book discussions, and follow Amy and Jonathan on Twitter.

The post Picking Up the Pieces: An Interview with Runaway Radical’s Amy and Jonathan Hollingsworth appeared first on Jayson D. Bradley.

One of life’s tragic comedies is that when you’re a teen, everyone’s a moron but you. You have it all figured out, and there’s no reason to listen to people twice your age.

As you crest 40, you realize how little you know, and the things you have learned, you’ve had to learn the hard way. You’d love to pass that wisdom on to your children . . . but they think you’re an idiot. By the time they figure out you weren’t, they’ll have learned the hard way, too.

Here are five lessons I wish I wouldn’t have learned by experience:

1. It’s easier to change when you’re young

Imagine your character as a slab of extremely slow-drying concrete. The moment you’re born it’s a sloppy wet soup that takes whatever form it’s poured into. As you mature, it begins to harden—becoming more pliable. There are many factors that contribute to the form it takes, factors like your environment, your surroundings, the people in your life, your will. . .

Despite the continued influence of other factors, the older you get, the more your will becomes the primary element determining the shape of your character—every decision solidifying it more and more. Because your decisions are solidifying your character, each time you make a choice—whether good or bad—it becomes harder not to make that choice again. Character is simply the by-product of repeated decisions conditioning the kind of decisions we’ll make in the future.

It’s easier when you’re younger to make changes to the kinds of decisions that are affecting your character. It’s not impossible to change when you’re older; it just becomes a lot more difficult.

I think that the New Testament is pretty clear that God is not recreating us against our will. He is working in partnership with us. We still have to make decisions that enable the Spirit’s work. Spiritual disciplines are simply choices that provide an invitation for the Spirit to work, but they’re still choices we make.

If you you choose to lash out and scream at others when you feel you’ve been wronged, you are developing an undisciplined and angry character. If you’re a Christian who chooses to lash out and scream at others when you feel you’ve been wronged, guess what . . . you’re developing an undisciplined and angry character. Your character is no respecter of theology.

It’s never too late to decide what kind of character you want and make decisions that lead you in that direction. But it’s a lot easier when you’re younger.

2. Talent is a trap

I’ve always been a natural artist. I can play any instrument I pick up, I write pretty well, and I’ve always excelled at other creative endeavors. Trust me; I’m not bragging. I think are all born with natural proclivities in keeping with our personalities, gifts, and interests. Those talents can be a trap.

I love music more than anything and always wanted to pursue it as a career, but I was never disciplined about it. Since I could out perform my peers when I was younger, I didn’t see any reason to break my neck practicing hours a day or building up a network of contacts. The truth is that there are probably tons of professional musicians who are successful because they weren’t talented. They wanted it more than I did, and learned the value of working for it.

Talent isn’t enough. Follow your gifts and talents to learn how you’re wired and see where your interests lie, and then work your butt off.

Because here’s the thing:
Talent + Work = Success
Work – Talent = Success
Talent – Work ≠ Success

There’s only one way to put your talents to work for you, and that’s to roll up your sleeves and get to work.

I wrote about this at length in a post titled 3 Ways Talent Will Undermine Your Success.

3. You are what you do

“My reward is with me, and I will give to each person according to what they have done.”—Revelation 22:12

For the last couple millennium, the church has discussed—at great length—whether someone was saved by faith or works. Orthodoxy has always fallen on the side of faith, and because of that, we tend to think that what we are simply what we believe.

But throughout the New Testament, Jesus makes it clear that the people who followed him would be the kind of people who fed the hungry, visited the imprisoned, issue invitations to strangers, etc. Their faith would be displayed by what they did—not just what they thought.

This isn’t simply a lesson for Christians, it’s a lesson for everyone. We all tend to think that people should naturally see us as the genuinely industrious, kind, and compassionate people we imagine ourselves to be. But why should they? To everyone else in the world, you are as industrious, kind, and compassionate as your actions demonstrate.

Now don’t get me wrong. This has nothing to do with your value as a person. You are valuable apart from what you do. It’s just important to realize that, to the world at large, it doesn’t matter what kind of person you are inside—until they see it in your behavior.

Honest people tell the truth.
Compassionate people sacrifice for others.
Brave people do what they’re afraid of.
Diligent people follow a task to completion.
Industrious people work hard.
Loving people ascribe worth to others.

Every virtue has a corresponding action. I’ve found that, too often in my life, I’ve imagined that I possessed virtues without the actions that should accompany them—or sometimes even while manifesting behaviors that were in opposition to them.

But if I really want to know what kind of person I am, I need to start by looking at what I do.

4. Fear ruins everything it touches

There’s a reason that “do not fear” is one of the most often spoken commands in Scripture. We are consistently anxious about so many things:

• Will people like me?
• Will I fit in?
• Will what I love be taken from me?
• Will things change?

There is power in the confidence that you’re stronger than you imagine yourself to be and that “that in all things God works for the good of those who love him . . .” (Rom. 8:28) Courage isn’t the absence of fear; it’s when you jump in spite of it.

Remember what we said earlier about choices and character? Every time we make the choice to allow fear to shape our decisions, the harder it will be to make a different choice next time.

The cost of learning this lesson the hard way is the realization that regret ultimately hurts more than facing our fears.

5. Trust is easier to maintain than it is to rebuild

There are a million different decisions that can destroy trust: unfaithfulness, breaking a confidence, unfulfilled promises . . . they can be made quickly and carelessly. As easy as it is to undermine trust, it’s so much easier to keep it than it is to fix it.

Trust is the key to all communication, and it is the one common element that ties together every relationship of merit. You can have trust without love, but you cannot have love without trust. It may, in fact, be the most important relational trait we can possess.

Trust me, this is a truth you don’t want to learn the hard way.

The post 5 Lessons I Wish I’d Learned by 25 appeared first on Jayson D. Bradley.

My friend Amy* shared this on Facebook yesterday,

“I became a Christian just after midnight on my 22nd birthday, the summer after I graduated from college, selling books door to door in Emporia, Kansas. It was nighttime and a man was following me in his car so I sought refuge in the home of a family who happened to be in the midst of a prayer meeting. And well, the rest is history.

Except for the fact that the people in the prayer meeting were part of an established cult that had overtaken the local seminary, now empty. And their stake in my conversion was a mercenary one, since their recruits went door to door as well, something I was already good at.

Even so, God didn’t seem to care about the cult or my messy entrance and was pleased, I think, to have used such clever means to make my acquaintance. That’s my testimony: Saved by a cult, thanks to a stalker.”

I read it and said to myself, “Yep, that’s precisely how I think God operates.”

Lost in the mall

Imagine that you’re Christmas shopping with your kids and your worst nightmare comes true. You get distracted for a brief moment and one of them disappears. She just vanishes.

At first you begin looking around where you saw her last, and the longer you look, the more you can feel your anxiety rising. Soon you begin quietly calling her name, and then your volume begins to rise and your tone gets more strident. You can feel yourself on the verge of a complete meltdown.

Now here’s my question: Whose help do you want? Whose help are you willing to accept?

Are you going to start interviewing these good Samaritans? I mean, you don’t want the wrong person out looking for your daughter, right? You might want to ask them important questions like:

• What kind of success have you had finding lost children in the past?
• Do you believe that once a child is found they can be lost again, or are they once found-always found?
• What do you think happens to children when they’re not found? Do they end up in the boiler room forever?
• Do you think the mall’s floor map is 100% accurate or could there be some inconsistencies?
• Have you ever been lost in the mall? If so, on what date where you found? Who found you, and what do they think about the above questions?
• What do you think is the best method for finding lost children? Do you go to them or try to create an attractive atmosphere so they’ll come to you?
• If you find my daughter, what is your plan to help her become a finder of lost children?
• How will my daughter be found? Is she found because I choose to find her or because she chooses to be found?
• Have you ever visited a mall Santa?

Of course you wouldn’t ask those questions. If you couldn’t find your child, you would gladly accept anyone’s help. Why do we assume that God is different?

God of the willing

Amy’s story spoke to me because I think it happens more often than we would like to believe. God reaches out and uses people who are enthusiastically available—even when we believe they fall on the short end of the truth spectrum.

I’ve heard people so many times say something like, “I don’t have a problem with Jehovah’s Witnesses [You’re welcome to substitute this group for your cult du jour], but I would probably draw the line at joining with them in a ministry to the homeless.”

There might be a million reasons:

• I don’t want other people to think I condone their belief system
• I don’t want them to think I condone their beliefs
• I don’t want people to associate our group with theirs
• I don’t want to confuse the people we’re helping and possibly lead them in the wrong direction

It makes me wonder how God feels. If there is a rightness spectrum, how correct do you have to be for God to use you? 100%? 80%? 60%? 30%? How does any one of us really know where we stand on that spectrum? Honestly.

I know that everyone feels that they’re closer to the goal than others, but let’s be honest. God is using the willing and misinformed all the time—even when he’s using us.

Maybe it’s time to join the search?

It would frustrate me as a anxious father looking for his lost child if I heard people saying things like:

• “I’d like to help, but I’m just not ready. I need to spend more time familiarizing myself with this map of the mall before I feel like I can be helpful.”
• “It’s unfortunate that you lost your daughter, but I am not going to subject myself to looking for her with those people.”
• “I don’t know what I’d say to her if I found her.”

If my friend Amy can discover a vibrant relationship with God under such inauspicious circumstances, maybe we can all lighten up a little bit. I’m not saying that theology or biblical knowledge doesn’t matter. If you’re a regular reader of this blog, you know that I care about those issues. I’m just saying that maybe those things don’t have to be the reason we are so willing to discount others or put up walls around how and when God is allowed to work.

Maybe, just maybe, we can join his adventure and leave a lot of the divisive specifics up to him. It is his church after all.

*The friend I mentioned is, author, Amy Hollingsworth. Check out my interview with her and her son, Jon, about their incredible book Runaway Radical.

The post Olly Olly Oxen Free: What if God Will Use Anyone!? appeared first on Jayson D. Bradley.

“Many will say to me on that day, ‘Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name and in your name drive out demons and in your name perform many miracles?’ Then I will tell them plainly, ‘I never knew you. Away from me, you evildoers!’” Matt. 7:22–33

Jim Jones

I recently published a post entitled Olly Olly Oxen Free: What if God Will Use Anyone!? The gist of the post (which I’d encourage you to check out) is that God doesn’t decide who he’s going to use strictly by choosing perfect, theologically correct specimens. He’ll often use people who are willing—or at least available.

But in thinking about the content of that post and discussing it with others, I was stricken by this important truth: If God can and will use anyone, then being used by God should not be seen as approval or license.

Back to the Mall

In the original post, I used the allegory of a parent losing their child at the mall. Obviously in a horrible situation like that, you’re going to welcome anyone’s help. You aren’t going to pick and choose people based on their ideology or even quiz them on their moral values—if their willing to help you, you’ll use them.

God might not be that different. He’s hard at work reconciling the world to himself, and, if Jesus weeping over Jerusalem is any indication (Luke 19:41-44), the emotion and urgency invoked by the idea of losing your child might not be too far off.

Because the stakes are so large, God isn’t above using unlikely tools like Zoroastrians (Matt. 2), a medium (1 Sam. 28), or a talking ass (Num. 22).

Don’t miss the significance

This should be heartening news. You don’t have to be perfect for God to use you. You don’t have to have it all together. If you’re available and willing (or even if you’re unavailable and unwilling), God might use you.

But what we desperately need to recognize is that God’s willingness to use you isn’t a sign of pleasure or favor. To assume that pastoring a megachurch, publishing a book, managing a powerful parachurch organization, or writing a successful blog is a sign that God favors me borders on hubris—a hubris that I have been guilty of many times.

The fact is that God is willing to use the tools available to him in spite of us—and not because of us.

I had another Christian friend years ago who came to know the Lord in San Francisco through the early ministry of Jim Jones—the same Jones who eventually led 909 Americans to death in a murder/suicide pact in the jungles of South America. My friend said that he knew a lot of people who were unable to follow Jones down to establish Jonestown in Guyana, and many of them still follow Christ in healthy, orthodox churches today.

It seems crazy and reckless for God to use the ministries of sociopaths, hucksters, and despots, but he does. And to be honest, that’s probably a good thing. None of us are completely pure in our motives and devotion. It’s just too easy to use Christian ministry as a pedestal for personal glorification. If God was to only use the pure among us, he would be very limited in his ability to save those he is so passionate about.

Using versus knowing

The verse at the beginning of this post is a powerful one. Imagine standing before Christ and trying to use the things you did for him as bargaining chips. Christ probably did use these people’s willingness and availability. They are invoking the authority of actual prophecies and miracles they performed in Christ’s name. It’s not too farfetched to assume that Christ did perform miracles and cast out demons through the “ministries” of these people.

In the end, however, they never developed a relationship with Christ that was their own. They assumed that the successful work they did was a sign of God’s pleasure with them. The fact that they had public success probably was seen as license for private excess. In fact, their public success in their ministries probably did a lot to blind them to their personal need.

If you’re like me, this is an incredibly sobering and scary thought.

The post Drinking the Kool-Aid of Our Own Success appeared first on Jayson D. Bradley.

This guest post is by my friend Josh Kelley, speaker and the author of Radically Normal: You Don’t Have to Live Crazy to Follow Jesus (Harvest House). You can learn more about him and his family’s trip around the country at www.RadicallyNormal.com.

When I was a college freshman in southern California, I got a job selling overpriced memorabilia at a local mall. I felt like I’d entered a different world – my manager was African American and the assistant manager was gay. I’d grown up in a small, northwest community that was as monochromatic as a slice of Wonder Bread. The two or three African Americans who lived my in town were almost treated like royalty as everyone tripped over themselves to demonstrate they weren’t racist. (How they treated the migrant Mexican workers was another matter.)

I thoroughly enjoyed working for Marsha, not just because it proved I wasn’t racist, but because it was cultural experience. I learned that “ax” meant “ask” and that is was ok to say “Praise Jesus” at just about every occasion. But nothing shocked me as much as when she talked sadly about a friend’s son who had just joined the Los Angeles Police Department. “He seemed like a good Christian, too” Marsha said, speaking of him as a prodigal son.

My family and I are on a year-long trip around the country and this week we entered the South. Once again, I feel like I’ve entered a different world. The hotel clerk couldn’t believe my daughters had never tasted grits and I’ve occasionally struggled to understand what the locals are saying. But by entering this world, I finally understand Marsha’s world a little better.

On Saturday, we visited the Civil Rights Museum in Memphis. It’s a remarkable museum in many ways, not the least of which being its location. It was built in the Lorraine Motel, where Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. was assassinated. The iconic balcony looks just as it did 50 years ago, except for the wreath marking the spot where he was shot.

The museum begins with an exhibit about the early days of slavery followed by a movie that took us up to the end of the Civil War. From there, exhibit after exhibit led us through the creation of Jim Crow laws, the oppression of African Americans, and the struggle for civil rights. I kept thinking, “How could people – Christians – do this to their fellow man?” And then it was in the Selma exhibit that I finally understood Marsha’s world. As I watched the video of state troopers beating peaceful citizens marching across a bridge, I got a taste of her anger and distrust. What is one to do when those sworn to uphold justice are the very ones denying it? How can that trust be rebuilt when injustice still happens today?

So what is my point in sharing all this? Last year, I met an African American young man who was traveling around the country, much like my family is now. He told me that he traveled with a Chihuahua, not just for companionship but to serve as an “ambassador of cuteness” that eased white people’s fear of him. Later, I talked to my daughters about how sad it was that he couldn’t travel without the fear of racism. One of them responded, “But daddy, I thought Martin Luther King fixed all that.”

As one who has largely been sheltered from the ugly face of racism, I see in myself in my daughters’ naiveté. Until I was able to enter Marsha’s world just a little, I did not understand how much we still live under the shadow of centuries of injustice. The suspicion and distrust between the African American community and the police still exists. As one example, we visited the Civil Rights Museum with an African American gentleman I met in Houston. He explained to us that, even though he is respectably-dressed business man, there is a stretch of road between Texas and Louisiana where he is consistently pulled over for the smallest of reasons.

So I guess this is my point: Regardless how you feel about Ferguson or “I can’t breathe” the one word you cannot use is “simply.” Nothing about race relations in America is simple. It cannot be adequately addressed in sound bites or tweets. Ferguson is not simply about whether or not Michael Brown had his hands up. Civil rights are not simply about marches in the 60’s. Quotas and equal opportunity are not simply “reverse racism.” It is all very complicated and I think I’ll be more cautious in airing my opinion on Facebook until I understand their world a little better. Before I speak, I need to step out of my white, middle-class comfort zone, past the myth that racial issues are long gone, and into their world that is still plagued with inequality. For me, this required taking a trip around the country. I hope you can find a shorter route.

The post Now I Understand—A Visit to the Civil Rights Museum appeared first on Jayson D. Bradley.

According to Open Doors USA, an organization focused on Christian persecution around the world, every thirty days:

1. 332 Christians are killed for the faith
2. 214 churches and Christian properties are destroyed
3. 772 forms of violence are committed against Christians (including beatings, abductions, rapes, arrests, and forced marriages)

In light of statistics like this, it’s always amazing to me when I hear Americans talk about the persecution they are suffering. I talked a little bit about it last February in a post entitled, Help! I’m Being Persecuted . . . Aren’t I? 

On top of this weird idea that many American Christians have that they’re being persecuted is the strange, strident conviction that this shouldn’t be the case. In a religion where the founder promised persecution to his followers and its church was birthed in a climate of oppression, you think people would not only recognize true persecution, they’d expect it.

Who is fueling American Christianity’s persecution complex?

In Jason Wiedel’s new book, Persecution Complex, he discusses this important issue. Not content to point out that that this complex exists, Wiedel takes a hard look at where this persecution narrative is coming from, what makes it so attractive, why it’s dangerous, and how we can release ourselves from it.

It’s a brilliant little book (less that 150 pages) that’s as important as it is readable.

One of the things that makes it brilliant is the discussion questions for each chapter. If you have a small group or are considering putting one together, this would be a brilliant book to gather around.

Our perception matters

You might be asking yourself, “Why does this issue matter so much? Aren’t we losing our religious liberties? Who cares if some people are more strident about it than others?”

Here’s the issue: If you subscribe to a narrative that makes you a victim for being right, you’re going to become entrenched and combative. It seems completely counter-intuitive to adopt an antagonistic posture toward a culture that you wish to attract—especially when it’s based on folk tale.

I think Wiedel’s Persecution Complex does a bang up job of revealing that American Christianity’s problem is that we see the erosion of privilege as persecution—and it’s not.

Persecution Complex is on sale for $2.99!

For a limited time you can get the Kindle edition of Persecution Complex for only $2.99! But you have to act fast! It’s only $2.99 until January 20! What are you waiting for? Go!

The post Persecution Complex: Jason Wiedel Shatters Our Delusion appeared first on Jayson D. Bradley.